All The Things We Lost
by eggsaladstain
Summary: Alex, Catherine, and Vincent have each lost something. (2/3)
1. Senseless

**All The Things We Lost**

I.

Senseless (adjective) - deprived of sensation; lacking mental perception, meaningless.

...

_Alex_

She's in the kitchen when she gets the call. Right in the middle of chopping vegetables when the voice on the other end tells her that he's dead.

_Thank you for calling_, she says, her mind shutting down completely, leaving her body going through the motions. She hangs up the phone and returns to the task at hand, guiding the knife through carrots, then celery, and straight on to her finger. She looks down at the torn flesh, the growing pool of red. Dinner is ruined.

The food and cutting board go in the trash with a thud, and she cleans and bandages her wound with gauze. There's an alarming amount of blood, but she doesn't feel any pain.

She doesn't feel anything.

Her feet are heavy as she shuffles over to the couch, and she runs her bandaged hand along the fabric. He was the one who had picked it out.

It was their third date, one that she remembers in perfect detail. They were supposed to meet at the movie theater, but she had lost track of time at a furniture store and called him, frantic and apologetic. He laughed - oh, how she misses that laugh - and said it was no big deal, then asked which store she was in and offered to meet her there. Half an hour later, he surprised her in the showroom, draped his arm around her shoulder, and said, _now, let's find you a couch._

That was the day she fell in love with him.

The couch is faded now, the fabric almost worn through in some places, but she never could bear to replace it. It's the only thing she has left that still smells like him, and when she sits down, it's almost like he's there with her.

If she closes her eyes, she can pretend that he is.

Holding on to the last shred of him, she lays her head down on the pillow and feels moisture on her cheek. When she touches her face, her fingers come back tear-stained. She doesn't even realize she's been crying, but now that the tears have started, she can't make them stop, so she curls up on the couch, pretending she's in his arms, and cries for all that she has lost.

For the man she loved.

For the part of herself that died with him.

For the future they could have had together.

The two of them, doctor and nurse, husband and wife, in a charming apartment with a dog or two - this was the future they should have had together, and she doesn't understand how it all went so wrong.

It doesn't make sense.

Nothing makes sense anymore.

Instead of their wedding, she attends his funeral and when she should have tossed her bouquet, she throws dirt onto his grave. It's her second time losing him, but this time, there's no chance that he'll come back to her - there's nothing to come back from.

That night, she comes home to her apartment and collapses onto the couch. She inhales, expecting to feel the last remnants of him, but there's nothing. Panicked, she presses her face against the fabric and sinks into the cushions, but it's no use - she can no longer feel him. There's no sense of him left in her life, and if it weren't for the letters and old photographs she kept, she never would have known that he was there at all.

That's what he has been reduced to - a box of paper in the back of her closet.

That's the day she understands he's really gone.

She's numb for a long time after that, unable to feel him, unable to feel anything. Not knowing what else to do, she throws herself into med school, and a few years after that, she becomes a nurse and buys a cozy apartment in a nice neighborhood. She doesn't have a dog but she does volunteer at an animal shelter, so in the end, she gets everything she wanted after all.

Everything except him.

In the end, she doesn't have anything at all.


	2. Breathless

**All The Things We Lost**

II.

Breathless (adjective) - holding one's breath or having it taken away; breathing with difficulty, the inability to breathe.

...

_Catherine_

At the hospital, they tell her she had a collapsed lung. That she stopped breathing for a few minutes and that if it hadn't been for that roadside surgery, she would have suffocated to death. That's why she's having trouble breathing, they explain. That's why she's in so much pain.

They're wrong.

It's not her injury that makes everything hurt. It's the way her nurse says Vincent's name - softly, with familiarity, the way lovers do. It's the way he can't quite meet her eyes when he confesses that he had a past with her. It's the photographs and letters she finds in the box in the closet, the realization that they were more than just friends.

It's not her lungs that hurt when she breathes.

It's her_ heart_.

Every time she sees them look at each other, every time they share a smile or a laugh, she feels a sharp pain in her chest. A lump forms in her throat, and in those moments, she can't breathe at all. In those moments, when she sees the two of them together, it's like the night she got shot all over again, except this time, he's not there to save her.

This time, she has to save herself, so she does what she does best – she throws herself into physical therapy, gets released from the hospital a week early, and returns to work. She's confined to desk duty, but even shuffling paperwork is preferable to sitting at home, waiting for him to show up outside her window and wondering if he's with her when he doesn't appear.

But she still wonders. She never used to think about what he did when he wasn't with her, but now, it's all she can think about.

And she hates it.

She hates feeling jealous, being worried, but she can't help it. She's afraid of losing him. A life without him in it is one that she can't imagine, one she doesn't want to imagine.

But for the first time, she realizes that it's a possibility.

He's become an integral part of her life, but maybe she's no longer such an important part of his. They - the two of them, whatever they are to each other - are unbalanced now. And she's not quite sure where to go from here. In relationships, it was always her who withdrew, refusing to let herself get in too deep.

But she did this time.

This time, she's in way too deep, she's in over her head, and the closer she gets, the further he slips away. This time,_ he's_ the one pulling away, and she can only watch, gasping as he fades out of view.

She tries to hold on tighter, for him, for_ them_, but she can only fight for him if he's willing to fight for her too. And this time, she's the only one fighting. This time, she's alone.

_That's_ why she's having trouble breathing. _That's_ why she's in so much pain.

But the worst part is that there's nothing she can do about it. There's nothing she can do to make it better, so she does the only thing left to do - she lets him go. After all he's been through, he deserves to be happy, even if it's not with her. And after all she's been through, she deserves the same.

It's better this way, she tells herself, even as her breath catches in her throat. It's better this way for everyone.

Everyone except her.


End file.
